Restaurant Chef Choi Sdn Bhd 蔡师父 @ Ampang

When I first read the good reviews about Chef Choi from the blogs a few months back, I wasn’t sure when would I get a chance to dine there as the place seemed to be somewhat above my budget bracket lah. Anyway, when I was given the chance to suggest a restaurant for the important Chinese New Year eve- reunion dinner, this was one of the places that I included in the restaurant list.

We didn’t go for the CNY set menu and I must commend that the Restaurant Manager and the staff were very courteous and helpful while we were discussing the menu, and luckily Chef Choi –continue to serve most of their usual dishes during the CNY period. After a few e-mails and phonecalls we finally decided on the menu ( and price) and then it’s just counting the days to the feast.

First up -Chef Choi Barbecued Crispy Pork脆皮烧猪肉- The roast pork was rather good, – some of the pieces had rather thick layer of fat but that goes really well taken with the crispy skin and the tender aromatic meat. Nice..

Special four Hors D’oeuvres 特式四热荤 – mushroom stuff with fishball/minced meat, stir fried squid, baby octopus and fishball/minced meat wrapped in crispy beancurdskin. The stuff mushroom was ok, the squid was springy and fresh, I think the kids were a bit terrified of the notion of swallowing the baby octopus whole- head, tentacles and all- this was sweetish and pretty ok. The favourite of the four was possibly the crispy beadcurd skin thingy- crispy on the outside and meaty on the inside plus a tinge of celery or something which enhance the taste.

Braised shark’s fin with mushroom and fish lips 什锦鱼唇翅- sorry, again, I forgot about the sharks and without thinking included this in the menu, if there’s any comfort – I didn’t enjoyed this. There were a lot of this stringy vegetable ( not sure what that was) and shreds of mushroom, there were also some gelatin-ish thingy – fish lips or shark’s fin I guess, Overall the taste was so-so, I guess I tasted better shark’s fin soup at the usual Chinese wedding dinner lah.

Deep fried Garoupa with light soy sauce 油炸石班鱼 —there were a lot of objections from the family when this was included in the menu – Deep fried fish…how can ! good fish should be steamed mah..anyway, the blogs that I read mentioned that this is very good, so had to try it lah..The fish looked like it was doing a balancing act on it’s tummy. Although the fine texture and the sweetness of the garuopa can still be tasted even after deep frying, I felt that the enjoyment of tasting good fish had somewhat lost some of it’s essence as i found the fish a tad too dry, I missed the smoothness of the meat, of tasting the cheeks of the fish ( which was impossible to extract in this deep fried version)..

Braised pork shoulder with mushroom, sea moss and scallop 冬菇带子发菜元蹄 – I was a bit too slow in taking a picture of the shoulder before it was ‘destroyed/ cut up’ but the waitress, so what you see here is just broken pieces of the meat. This was more meat that mushroom ,sea moss or scallop. The meat was tender and well marinated but the accompanying mushroom, sea moss and scallop weren’t that impressive.

Roasted crispy chicken 吊烧菜园鸡 the skin of the chicken was fragrant and crispy, the meat was a bit salty and dry .The accompanying crackers disappeared in a matter of seconds but the chicken took a bit longer though…. This was kinda average

Stir fried asparagus with fresh scallops- 露笋炒带子 wow..so many scallops, actually too many scallops until it seemed like everyone was fighting to get their share of the asparagus instead. This was kinda average .

Chef Choi special fried noodles 蔡师父炒面–lotsa ingredients in the noodles ( somewhat like yee-mien) , this was rather tasty, although I find it a bit too salty